12
The Eyeless Horde
Scent of sweetness, flavors thrilling;
Hark the warming touch of killing.
From the Delver Chants
Sensations of Death
K arkald raced through the darkness, stumbling over unseen rocks, scraping against the pillars that rose throughout the vast cavern. Before him he saw faint light, illumination filtered around several bends of the subterranean passage, but unquestionably emanating from a bright source.
He heard Darann’s shout, then a sound like a rock clattering across the floor. Brandishing his spear, he sprinted faster, turning a corner, squinting in the brightness of his wife’s coolfyre. He saw her throw another rock, striking a target out of his sight.
But there was another beast leaping through the air, striking like a snake toward that face Karkald loved more than any other in all the Seven Circles. This was a wyslet-he saw the bristling whiskers, the narrowed snout and body, the gaping maw with its array of razor-sharp teeth. Darann raised her arm and Karkald, still thirty paces away, could only shout in horror and fury. The proximity of his wife to the target ruled out any casting of his spear, and he could never cross that distance in time to help. Even so, he charged in blind fury and then, in a moment, saw the wyslet thrashing across the floor. Miraculously, his wife was sitting with her back against the rock. Karkald saw no sign of a wound on her face.
“Gotya, rock rat!” The jeering voice came from behind the wyslet, and for the first time Karkald noticed the wiry figure with arms and legs wrapped around the predator’s body. Hiyram’s hands were locked behind the beast’s head, and though the pair thrashed and rolled across the floor, the goblin pressed with impressive strength until the snapping of the wyslet’s spine cracked through the cave.
“Kark!” Darann screamed.
He turned to see a wyslet slinking around the rock, red eyes greedily fixed upon the dwarfwoman. Karkald hurled the spear with every fiber of his strength, and the steel head and stout shaft tore right through the skinny body. The beast thrashed and hissed, pinned to the soft rock by the force of the throw.
Two more wyslets rushed in. Karkald met those with the hammer in his right hand, hatchet-or rather, Darann’s kitchen cleaver-in his left. One collapsed, slain instantly with a crushed skull, and the other disappeared into the darkness, yowling loudly, bleeding from a gash over its eye.
He looked in mute horror at Darann, but saw that she was unscratched. Drawing a few ragged breaths, she reached for him, and he tumbled into her embrace.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, as she was saying the same words. Finally she cried, and pulled him close, and he held her tightly and breathed the scent of her hair, her neck, herself. His own long arms wrapped his dwarfmaid, and he sighed a long exhalation of relief.
“Hiyram-you came back,” he said, after his breathing had steadied enough for him to speak.
“Yup,” chortled the goblin contentedly.
“Why?” asked Darann. “I thought you blamed us for the trap that caught you.”
Hiyram laughed louder. “Lotsa traps… lotsa dwarves. But I’m hungry, so I come here.”
“Hungry… but-” Darann’s voice choked off, and she looked at the bloody, wretched wyslet corpses around them.
“Happy news, that!” smirked Hiyram, swaggering up to the couple and puffing out his scrawny chest. He chucked a thumb at the three slain wyslets. “Good eatin’, if ya don’t mind stink!”
K arkald woke up with a sensation that he was still dreaming. Darann slept, curled against his lap, her back against his chest. They were both naked, covered by the smooth cloth of their blanket. He smelled her hair, let it mingle with his beard as he gently reached for her breast and allowed himself to sigh contentedly.
For the first time in many intervals, his memories were pleasant. Before sleeping, the two dwarves and the goblin had filled their stomachs with fresh meat. Hiyram had stuffed himself until his belly bulged, then announced that he was going to sleep for a year. The dwarves had practiced more moderation, even though the wyslet flesh had proven surprisingly palatable-after they learned not to breathe through their noses. Then the couple found a small grotto some distance away from the snoring goblin, and here they tenderly reaffirmed their love, each soothing away the other’s guilt with kisses, touches, reassuring affection.
These memories were especially vivid and sweet, and he pulled Darann close with a powerful burst of longing. Cupping the fullness of her flesh in his hand, he pressed against her, felt her shift and turn slightly as she slowly came awake. He squeezed, found her nipple with his blunt finger. Kissing the back of her neck through the mane of hair, he pushed his loins against her with strong, suggestive force.
When she reached her hand between them, her fingers grazed his flesh with an electric, rousing touch. Soon they were turning, she rolling to her back while he slid on top of her. She took him in, and in a breathtaking, gasping moment they became one. For long minutes they lay nearly still, murmuring sounds of love, moving hands and lips. Gradually the pace of their motion increased, though still they were nearly silent. They shared the moment of release with a deep kiss, clinging desperately to each other, love coursing as hot as the blood running through their veins.
As his breathing returned to normal, Karkald thought what a grand thing it was to be alive.
They took a long time getting up, and by the time they had ambled back to the main cavern they found Hiyram sitting, belching and sniffing the air. His eyes were luminous in the darkness and when Darann touched off a bit of coolfyre he scowled in irritation.
“Why’s for dat?’ he demanded. “Spose’d be dark round here.”
The dwarfwoman just laughed.
“Where goin?” asked the goblin, quickly shifting conversational tacks. “Way from wyselts, yup?”
“Why-are there more of them around here?” Karkald asked worriedly.
The toothy face bounced up and down in an enthusiastic nod. “More and more comin’, runnin’ from Delvers, yup?”
“Delvers?” Now Karkald felt a real chill of alarm. “They can’t be around here, can they? Remember, we’re in the midrock, miles above the First Circle now!”
“Delvers climb up, too… like you two, too.” Hiyram hooted gleefully at his wordplay. “Lotsa rocks fall down… Delvers find a way up.”
“How many Delvers?” Karkald was remembering the size of the force he had seen below his watch station.
“More than I could count… or you too, either. Fingers and toes on myself, and on you and you… makes not even the start of ’em.”
“An army-climbing up here?” Darann asked, staring wide-eyed at Karkald. “But why?”
“Go to Fourth Circle,” Hiyram exclaimed with a hearty chuckle. “Elves up there-Delvers eat ’em like maggots!”
Karkald looked at his wife, saw the memory of horror in her eyes. He, too, recalled the visage of that steel-jawed monster, Zystyl, and his eyeless horde. Could the scourge of the First Circle be released against a whole new world?
“The elves know nothing of war, of hatred and killing. They’ll be helpless!” Darann whispered, and Karkald knew she was right. Nayve’s innocents would be massacred in droves. He could only nod in mute agreement.
“Then we have no choice but to keep climbing,” she declared, and he had no argument with her decision. “We have to get all the way to Nayve, to carry to the elves the warning of the Delver invasion.”
B elynda awakened to a world that had changed in a profound and unmistakable way. She sensed the alteration in the core of her being, in her ragged memories of the nightmare that had been visited upon her in the darkness. Numbly she groped for her gown, pulled the tattered garment over herself like a blanket. Her body was sore, bruised and scraped where she had been used. But that was not even the worst of it-the violation went deeper, touched at the very heart of her being, and then went further still until it had warped the place that was the Fourth Circle.
; The sage-ambassador knew that her life, her world, would never again be the same. She tried to remember who she had been, why she had come to the Greens. But those memories meant nothing, had no relevance to this painful thing that existence had become.
Nistel… surely he was dead, killed by that awful blow to his head. Perhaps it was only yesterday that his life had been taken, but even that seemed, from her current vantage, like a very long time ago. It had happened before she was changed into this person she didn’t know, couldn’t even begin to recognize.
A fire burned within her, a raging conflagration that seemed to destroy her peace, her soul, everything that was good about her. Her hands curled into claws as she remembered the man, remembered what he had done to her. She would have killed him in an instant if he had been standing before her.
But when she tried to move, she realized that vengeance was, for now, an unattainable dream. The injuries to her flesh were real, and crippling. It was only with great difficulty that she could push herself to a sitting position and slip the gown over her shoulders. She ached in her limbs and joints, felt a stinging soreness in her neck. And these hurts were as nothing compared to the ripping fire in her loins, the burning, the sense of pervasive poison that, she feared, must quickly consume her body.
Perhaps it was already too late… she had a sense that she was already doomed, fatally wounded, crippled in a way that could never be made whole. The despair was so powerful that, for a moment, she almost yielded to a darkness that would have dragged her back down onto the straw mattress, never to rise again.
But it was the memory of that mattress, the place where he-the man who was a monster-had worked his evil, that gave her the strength to stand. She moved away from the bed with a shudder of revulsion, and then, once again, her hopelessness began to give way to a stronger emotion.
“I hate him.”
She said the words quietly, and they brought her some small comfort. Until this moment, hate had been an abstract concept to her, a thing that had no place in Nayve. Now she felt it in her guts, in the fury that tightened her jaw and brought a narrow squint to her eyes. She raised her hands and saw that they were fists, small but rocklike, and for an instant she fixed on the idea of striking the man who had attacked her. She swung her arm, awkwardly she knew, but even that flailing gesture brought a sense of satisfaction.
Then the flap of the tent was pulled aside and Belynda whirled. All of her anger turned to panic as she instinctively took a backward step. By the time she had recovered her resolve, she recognized the intruder not as her attacker, but as the massive centaur called Gawain.
“Come with me,” said her captor, stomping his great forehoof for emphasis.
“Why?” she snapped. “Where are you taking me?”
Her objections were ignored as Gawain reached for her with a meaty hand, snatching her arm before she could pull away. She kicked and squirmed but he had no difficulty manhandling her around, clasping her back to his chest and lifting her off the ground. Belynda kicked again, but she couldn’t reach the centaur, and each movement sent a jolt of pain through her bruised body. Such was the power of her hatred that she kicked and thrashed with renewed violence, ignoring the agony in her own flesh.
The great centaur pulled her out of the tent and she saw the encampment of her enemies in daylight for the first time. They were in a wide clearing amid the high trees of the Greens. Hundreds of unkempt people, nearly all male, stared at her. There were a few dozen centaurs, mostly at the perimeter of the camp. Closer by, in casual clumps of like kind, she saw numerous goblins and elves, and smaller groups of looming giants. All of them, even the few women present in the army, looked at her with a peculiar, disturbing sense of hunger. She saw burly giants lick their lips, goblins nod their round heads eagerly as she was carried past. Even the elves, her own people, watched with a kind of bemused fascination, though they displayed little emotion at her predicament.
Her destination, she soon perceived, was a large tent of white canvas. Before it stood a pole, and atop that staff was a pennant of white and red. It drooped in the still air, but she remembered Tam’s description of the crimson cross. Vaguely she recalled that the man’s tunic, hellish in the candlelight the night before, had borne that same image on its breast.
Then she looked beyond the great tent and she saw that another post had been planted in the ground. This one was stout, like a sturdy tree trunk, and around its base was piled a mass of brush and kindling.
She remembered the story of the burning, the tale she had heard from Tamarwind and Deltan, and for the first time considered the possibility that she would die here. The irony was staggering and infuriating: She had gained the concrete evidence that she needed, and in doing so ensured that she would not get to bear witness in the Senate. An insane urge to laugh flickered through her mind. But the tent loomed large now, and her hatred immediately swelled. This time it was tinged with any icy fury that, she vowed, would help her to think, to plan.
“In here.” Gawain unceremoniously put her down and then pushed her through the open flap of the tent.
Blinking against the darkness, she saw only a little movement. In a moment she recognized the man coming toward her, saw the black beard and the even darker eyes. He looked at her with an expression of scorn. His hands were planted on his hips. His viper-headed staff was propped against a chest on the other side of the tent.
Belynda attacked. She sprang forward with fingers outstretched, reaching like claws for those wicked eyes. At the last second he threw up an arm, and she raked across his wrist to draw parallel lines of blood. Her foot lashed out, but the folds of her gown prevented the blow from having any force.
“Witch!” cried Christopher. “Aye, thou art Satan’s deceiver!”
He punched her in the face and she tumbled backward. He strode forward to stand over her. “I had a mind to offer you God’s salvatation, but you have chosen the pits of Hell instead!”
“I spit on your salvation!” Belynda tried to twist away, but the man was quick and powerful. Seizing her golden hair, he jerked her upward with a neck-wrenching tug. The elfwoman gasped and choked as he wrapped an arm around her throat, squeezing her windpipe in the crook of his elbow.
She flailed with her feet, kicking on his heavy boots with no effect. Her elbow slammed into his solar plexus and he cursed, then pressed her neck until her vision was tinged with red and ultimately faded to black.
By the time she could see, they had emerged from the tent. The men of Christopher’s army were streaming toward the stake, gathering in a thick, churning ring of eagerness.
“This is a witch and a harlot!” he proclaimed, to murmurs of agreement that rumbled from all sides. “She will die in the cleansing power of flame-Pray to God Almighty that her evil is expurgated in that passing!”
Hoarse cheers rang from the lot as they formed a corridor leading from the tent to the stake. The big centaur was there, and plucked her from the knight’s grasp. Belynda recoiled from the sight of goblins leering at her, burly giants howling for blood. Other centaurs raced about in a frenzy, and the noise swelled thunderously.
Belynda drew a deep breath, ready to fight again, but now she was pinned in Gawain’s muscular grip. Her lungs strained for air, and a tinge of madness rose in her mind… she had to fight, to kill! Her purpose was only vengeance and the only fear she felt was the terror that she would die without exacting that retribution.
She knew she was hallucinating then, for she thought she saw Tamarwind Trak among the elves of the company. And there was Deltan Columbine, just on the other side… surely a sign that she was losing her mind. Still, she found it curiously comforting that she imagined her friends here, elves she had known for so long who could now be the witnesses to her death.
Her delusions ran deeper than she suspected, for she also caught a glimpse of dusky brown skin and a handsome, unsmiling face. Wasn’t that the warrior, Natac, summoned to Nayve by Miradel? Belynda had met him only once… Why wo
uld she now remember him? Perhaps this was another effect of the madness that presaged death. She hurt for a moment when she remembered Tamarwind, and the serenity that had marked their days together. Now serenity was gone, from her life and from her world.
Suddenly Gawain groaned and tripped forward. Tamarwind-it was Tamarwind!-grabbed Belynda’s arm before the centaur crushed her. A dozen other elves suddenly whirled on the nearby men of Christopher’s army. Heavy clubs knocked aside enemy elves and goblins, and two big men she recognized as humans swung heavy staves, bashing the faces of a pair of giants. Both of these tumbled to the ground.
The centaur, Gawain, was kicking, entangled in a noose that had snared three of his hooves. Natac, wielding a long, slender sword, stabbed quickly at an elf who tried to intervene. The weapon left only a pinhole in the victim’s chest, but the elf tumbled backward to kick weakly in a growing pool of blood. The warrior froze, looking in shock from his weapon to the bleeding corpse. By the time Natac shook his head and moved again, Belynda and Tamarwind had stumbled away. Tam used his heavy, stone-tipped spear to drive back several attacking elves.
“Come on!” he hissed. “We have to get to the forest!”
In the swirl of battle Belynda saw that Natac stood before Sir Christopher, who was unarmed. The knight slowly backed away.
“Kill him!” The sage-ambassador’s voice was a shriek, a sound she had never imagined, let alone heard, coming from her own throat. She shouted at Natac again, her face taut with hatred. “Kill him right now!”
The knight suddenly backed away, turning to run into his tent, while a pair of enemy elves charged the Tlaxcalan with spears. Natac stabbed, cut one elf down and bluffed the other into a hasty retreat.
“Go after him! Kill him!” cried Belynda.
“That is not the way to make war,” Natac declared, shaking his head. Still he looked stunned, unsure.
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